Wayfarers: Music by Mozart, Mendelssohn & Mahler

On 14 September Resonance Ensemble, conducted by Tony Ryan, will present a concert of well-known music, although, as always with Resonance programmes, the works are rarely heard in Christchurch.

Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony (No. 4) is one of this composer’s most popular pieces. All four movements radiate Italian warmth and vitality, drawing on Italy’s lively dance forms and folk songs. Mendelssohn was often inspired by places he encountered on his extensive travels, and Italy gave him all the colour, spectacle and atmosphere that he needed. These qualities are evident, not only in this joyful and sunny symphony but also in his talent as an artist, as seen in Resonance Ensemble’s poster and imagery for this concert which features one of the composer’s Italian paintings of the Amalfi Coast.

Soprano Helen Charlton joins the orchestra for Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). In this cycle of four lyrical songs, Mahler wrote his own words based on German folk poetry and these songs are among the most familiar and appealing of his vocal works, full of rhythmic variety and textural invention. The composer later used some of the material in his first symphony and, like much of Mahler’s music, Songs of a Wayfarer contrasts the beauty of nature with the melancholy of human life.

The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) was among Mozart’s very last compositions, premiered just two months before his death in 1791 at the age of thirty-five. This magnificent masterpiece is one of the composer’s few German operas (Singspiel), most others being written in the Italian style which was popular at the time. Resonance’s programme includes two extracts from The Magic Flute. The concert will open with its famous Overture, and Helen Charlton will once again join the orchestra for Ach, ich fühl's in which Pamina expresses her anxiety for Tamino’s safety.

Once again Resonance Ensemble has assembled an inventive and engaging programme that will stay with you as you leave the concert hall to continue your own wayfaring.